


cities you'll never see on screen

by still_i_fall



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hunger Games AU, M/M, also i listened to a lot of fine line while writing this and it shows, but only sometimes, this is when i started calling cassandra 'cass'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23219281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_i_fall/pseuds/still_i_fall
Summary: The night before the Games, she goes up to the roof of the training center for fresh air. The elevator makes her dizzy, but the sky, the blue and the light, reminds her of home. He meets her up there.She stares at him. “You’re winning.” It comes out in a rush. He’s her best friend. She’s never known anything as much as she knows that.-or harry and allie and the hunger games in fourteen different places with fourteen different names
Relationships: Harry Bingham/Allie Pressman, Kelly Aldrich/Will LeClair (background), Luke Holbrook/Helena Wu (background), Sam Eliot/Gareth "Grizz" Visser (background)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 60





	cities you'll never see on screen

**Author's Note:**

> back in december, is saw a hunger games gifset and then sorta spiraled and this happened. this was largely finished by the middle of december but then i took forever getting around to actually finishing it and then the coronavirus happened and i found myself with a little extra time on my hands. this is very much inspired by a hunger games fic i read forever ago about the twelve different districts. i just love the idea of being able to write twelve different hunger games aus.
> 
> a few notes: 
> 
> this might be a little bit confusing at times if you haven't read the hunger games. if it ever is, feel free to shoot me a message on [tumblr](https://in-my-head-i-do-everything-right.tumblr.com/) or if that's not possible, do a quick google search.
> 
> everyone (or mostly everyone) has different names per district. hopefully that doesn't get too confusing for anyone.
> 
> lastly, a big thanks to [tommeshelby](https://tommeshelby.tumblr.com/) for reading through this for me and for the idea behind the names in district 12
> 
> title is from the lorde song team and the lyrics at the begining and end are from the lorde song perfect places.

_“All of our heroes fading. Now I can’t stand to be alone.” - Perfect Places, Lorde_

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district one.**

When Aia Pressman is fifteen, she watches the first day of hunger games interviews at Hale Bingham’s apartment while his little sister colors with crayons made of diamond dust. 

Hale’s her neighbor. He lives on the floor above hers, the top floor. Sometimes, when it’s late and dark and quiet, she can hear his footsteps on the ceiling. It’s comforting. It reminds her that he’s there.

She was five the first time they met. She was five and small enough still to hide behind her mom when talking to strangers. Hale was a stranger for all of ten minutes, long enough only for them to share a cookie that had been brought as a part of a welcome gift. They shared a cookie and then a trip to the roof and then the brightest smiles that Aia had ever known. The rest is history. 

When the sky is clear, they watch the sunset on the roof together. It’s not usually allowed in District One, but people bend the rules for kids. In the summer, while the sun sits high in the sky, they’d camp up there too, setting up a tent made of blankets too old for regular use. Aia’s favorite was an old light purple one, soft from years of use. They’d lay it inside the tent, and she’d hug it close while sleeping.

The camping lasted until they were ten. Now, as they turn sixteen and spend summers in front of the TV, it’s just sunsets. Aia misses it, but doesn’t say anything.

(From the rooftop, on clear bright days. Aia can make out the outline of the Academy. As the sun sets and the sky turns pink, she closes her eyes and imagines Cass— Cass living and breathing and training and being more than just a yearly photograph and status updates.)

In Hales living room, while his sister sits in front of them coloring with crayons made of diamond dust, Aia shifts beside him on the couch. “Two more years and that’ll be Cass,” she tells him (though it’s more for her than him), staring at the TV. Somehow, she can already see it, her sister on the screen, confident and excited. Her sister is the family’s legacy. (Casseiopa could die right in front of her on that TV Hale has in his room that takes up the whole wall and Aia would never forget her. That’s still a legacy.)

Sometimes she wishes that she was as smart as her sister, that she was the one chosen by the committee when they were little, that she went to the special school and learned how to fight. She wonders if Cass misses home, if she’s scared, if she’s ready. Aia would never be ready. She doesn’t think enough, doesn’t strategize, doesn’t work ahead. Her parents tell her that this is why she wasn’t chosen.

The kids in District One are obsessed with the Games. Hale could have fit right in with them, with Casseiopa, if he’d wanted too. He’s rich enough for it, strong enough, smart enough. She’s glad he doesn’t, though. 

He might be her best friend.

“You ready for that?” Hale asks as though this is something she gets to worry about. She doesn’t get to worry about Cass because it’s all out of her hands. In two years, Aia will watch a girl she barely knows (but still calls family) fight to the death on screen. Sitting in Hale’s room, she’ll feel almost as if she’s right there with her. She’s not ready for that.

“Of course.”

Hale glances at his sister. She’s still coloring. She’s ten. If she’s ever reaped, there’ll be a volunteer. Hale still worries. (But Cas has a chance, a real, solid, chance. She’ll come home, to the Pressman residence rather than the Academy, and everything will be good and right.)

Two years later, while all the odds still remain in Cass’ favor, after she’s reaped and paraded around in a dress that makes her look like a precious gem, Aia sits with Hale in his room and watches her die. 

(It’s the two from Twelve that kill her. The _star crossed lovers._ The childhood sweethearts reaped together in some strange twist of fate. They win together because the Capitol is willing to bend the rules for love. In a world that’s good and right, there would’ve been no victor. No one who is willing to risk it all deserves to win.)

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district two.**

Maybe it’s wrong, but Hero Bingham is her best friend. He’s loud and bright and smart and strong, and Alodia has a hard time imagining The Center without him.

In a year, just as the sun reaches its summer peak, he’ll be in the Games with her sister. Only one of them can come home. It _has_ to be Caelia (but if it’s Hero instead, she won’t be disappointed. Maybe that’s fucked up. She’s not sure she cares). 

Alodia doesn’t remember her life before The Center. She was chosen as a baby, taken from home to join Caelia. She didn’t have a life before. None of them did.

The first time she meets him, it’s snowing, these big white flakes falling from the sky. His hair is covered in them. She thinks she stared. They were tiny then.

“Caelia’s sister?” he’d asked, eyebrows raised (the snow is still falling, It’s bright and cold, the tip of his nose is pink), and she’d nodded. He didn’t say _nice to meet you,_ but did smile at her for a second longer than he probably should have. They were just kids. She’d smiled back.

On Tuesdays, when they’re supposed to be in bed, he’ll take her into town. The sun will be down, but the streetlights will shine bright. Her dad runs a quarry and makes good money doing it. Alodia and Caelia remain some of the better off kids at The Center. (Hero’s dad died while Hero was young. He’s doing this to keep his sister out of the Games. She understands that, especially as she watches Caelia spar). If they’re quiet about it, her dad will slip them whatever extra money he has on hand, and Hero and Alodia will buy the day old pastries from the bakery just before it closes. 

They’ll walk just a little too close. People will stare as they pass by. Neither will care. It’s a comfort just to be out. One day, they’ll be free. Hero tells her that if they can learn to bake, they’ll start a bakery and only eat pastries. Alodia doesn’t mind that idea.

It’s dangerous to get close to anyone at The Center. Alodia knows this. The kids of Two are trained to kill. They don’t have many options. After their second trip, when Caelia caught them sneaking back in with sugar on the corners of their lips, she yelled at Alodia for an hour straight. “When I kill him,” she told her. “Al, you can’t hate me.”

And Alodia had looked at her, dead in the eyes. Neither are supposed to be up this late. They have training early the next morning. “I could never.”

Only, a week later, as she stands next to a poorly marked grave, she can’t help it, hating her sister. Caelia dies in her sleep, and Alodia wonders if it’s too late to disappear from the Center. There are girls, poor, desperate girls, who would take her place in an instant. She could stand to watch Hero kill one of those girls. It may even be easy. Maybe that’s fucked up. She doesn’t care. 

He could run away with her. They’d start the bakery a little early, but that’d be okay. They’d be free.

But then they ask her. (The same ‘they’ that took her away from home in the first place. The same ‘they’ that promise’s her glory, victory. “Two girls from the same family,” _they_ had said. “One is bound to win.”)

“It’s your right as her sister to take her place,” they tell her. She thinks long about saying ‘no’. Alodia has another year. She has the boy whose name starts with ‘W’ to kill, and time, so much time. Images of Hero Bingham as her district partner flash before her eyes. She can’t kill him even if it means winning. She’d let him live and she’d decide it in an instant.

Alodia takes too long to respond, and they don’t give her a choice.

And she doesn’t tell him. Why should she? Why should she ruin everything by giving them an expiration date? Only one of them can live. (That stupid dream they have doesn’t make sense to her without both of them. She continues to have it.)

The night after Caelia falls asleep and never wakes up, Alodia spends her first night in Hero’s room. It’s not allowed but no one cares. They have a year left. She falls asleep next to him by accident. He’s still her best friend. She doesn’t tell him about the Games then. (His arm around her waist. The room feels brighter. The next night, he pulls her in there with him. Nothing but sleep happens. She can’t imagine it any other way.)

She doesn’t tell him while training, while they practice foraging, while they spar, while they throw knives at a moving target. She doesn’t tell him while they walk into town.

Fucking Lex Pemberton tells him, and it ruins everything. 

Hero suddenly won’t talk to her. She follows him around the center, mirrors his actions in training and asks him _what’s wrong_ over and over until he snaps at her.

“I can’t fucking kill you, Al.”

She stares at him. The Center creates boys made to kill. It creates Victors. They win nearly every time (and lose only when the Capitol wants them to). “You won’t have to.” 

“If it comes down to the two of us--”

She interrupts him. “You’re winning.” It comes out in a rush. He’s her best friend. She’s never known anything as much as she knows that.

He turns away from her, and when Alodia calls out to him, asks if he wants to train with her, go into town with her, he doesn’t turn around. 

He doesn’t talk to her, but, at least in her dreams, Caelia does. She whispers secrets, and leads Alodia through Games. She tells her where to step and who to trust. Alodia always dies just before waking up. She has no plans to win. (She imagines a world without both Hero and Caelia. It’s not worth it.)

On reaping day, they both volunteer for kids who look too young to be eligible. He shakes her hand. They still don’t talk. In the parade, they stand pressed against one another. She whispers, “I miss you,” as people shout their names so loudly it hurts her head, and he doesn’t respond. At the training center, in the rooms as big as her parent’s house (she’s seen the place just once, with Hero, who’d convinced her to go inside), she’s just as quiet as him. During the interviews, she speaks of a dead sister, and he talks about a girl at home (it’s his sister too). Neither are sure what angle they’re playing. People still expect one of them to win.

The night before the Games, she goes up to the roof of the training center for fresh air. The elevator makes her dizzy, but the sky, the blue and the light, reminds her of home. He meets her up there.

There’s a kiss near the edge, the spot where you can see the whole Capitol, his lips pressed against hers. She wonders what it means. She thinks of goodbyes.

“You’re winning,” he tells her, slow and sure. It’s his first words to her in what feels like forever. She stares at him.

Alodia takes too long to respond, and he doesn’t give her a choice.

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district three.**

Gordie wins when Alia’s fourteen, and it changes everything (because suddenly _it’s possible_ ). He puts District Three on the map. He won because he was smarter than everyone else, and Cass, Cass who Gordie says is even smarter than him, seemed so incredibly proud as she watched him win. Alia wonders if Cass imagines a world in which that was her. The idea of victory is addicting in ways few things in Three are.

In District Three, everything is tinged grey. The district is full of grey houses and grey factories where they make the technology that runs the Capitol. (Gordie whispers that they have so much more power than they think. Alia doesn’t believe him. Cass does). It’s people are tinged grey too, pale and sunken. Alia wishes for the clouds to go away. She wishes for sunlight and color. She wants to be somewhere bright, bright enough that it maybe just hurts.

The day after Gordie comes home, while her and her sister visit him in the Victors Village (houses that feel warmer than anything she’s ever known), she asks if the Capitol is really as bright as they say. He calls it neon, and she wonders if the Games would really be so bad.

Gordie invites them over often. She likes his new home, likes the red of the chairs and the green walls in the downstairs bathroom. She likes his neighbor, Huxley Bingham, the son of a victor from years ago. Huxley isn’t allowed out much, but Alia likes to go over to his house too. His downstairs bathroom is a light yellow, and his room (he takes her up there the second time she visits) is a dark blue.

Alia met him while staring at the green in Gordie’s back yard. The fence between the yards is short enough to see over. Huxley introduces himself and Alia does the same. 

Huxley looks like he doesn’t belong in District Three. Maybe it’s because Alia only sees him in the context of color, in places that feel untouched by the gray. She ends up spending time with him while Cass and Gordie whisper things on plush red chairs, while they write out entire plans only to burn them. Huxley is loud and bright and makes her laugh until it hurts. 

For a little while, Alia doesn’t feel grey.

She’s with Huxley when the sky turns dark grey. She’s sitting on a chair in his room when Cass dies, when Gordie’s house explodes into a million pieces. Huxley pulls her onto the ground as the windows around them shatter, and hugs her as she shakes. 

They don’t find Cass’ body. Alia doesn’t go back to the village for two weeks. 

(Gordie was in the Capitol. When he comes home, he apologises to the Pressmans, whispered and quiet. He’s angry, though, his voice tinged with something that implies that the explosion wasn’t the accident President Pfieffer called it. Whatever he thinks, Alia doesn’t believe.)

Huxley isn’t allowed out still (his Dad’s orders. Alia doesn’t question it and neither does he. They’re safe and happy and well fed, and that’s more than most can say in District Three), but he sneaks out for Cass’ funeral.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. He’s wearing all black. She’s wearing her best clothes, her reaping day clothes. 

“I miss her.”

Alia cries for two nights straight. Her parents return to work. She returns to the Victors Village. Huxley is still there. The colors are almost bright enough to hurt.

The first time she’s back at his house, he whispers to her a story of his mom and sister disappearing in the dead of night.

“It was the middle of winter,” he tells her. “And I haven’t seen them since.”

Alia’s quiet. That night, she falls asleep at his house (his dad is never home. Alia wonders if Huxley is ever lonely in that big house all by himself. She knows she would be). Her parents don’t care. (They want what’s best for their daughter, and, in a district known for its poverty, the victor’s son seems like a good choice.)

“You could stay here,” he tells her. He’s always quiet in his house. It makes her want to be quiet too.

She shakes her head. “I’ll be back, though.”

Alia watches the Games at his house. His TV is brighter. She watches it for the colors, stares at the blue the tributes from District Four wear, and the green of District Seven. She stares at Huxley but still wonders if the games would really be so bad.

The tributes from District Three die in the bloodbath. Gordie comes home looking tired. She wonders if he misses Cass as much as she does (she wonders if he misses Cass even more than her).

She’s fifteen the first time she sees the world outside the district. Gordie takes her out past the fence. She worries that they’ll be caught, that they’ll be killed by some wild animals. Gordie leads her out to a cabin near a lake (a real lake. The water is blue. The air feels clear, not stuffy. There are no grey homes in sight. She thinks she falls in love) and tells her to keep the place quiet. He tells her that something big is coming and that he wants her safe. 

“I promised Cass,” he says. “That no matter what you’d always be safe.” Alia trusts him.

A week later, she takes Huxley out there, to the blue water and clear air. He whispers that they could live there, and she believes him.

“If I asked you to run away,” Huxley asks. “Would you do it?”

She thinks for a second, stares at the gray in the sky. “Yeah,” Alia says quietly. “I would.”

When she’s sixteen, two nights before bombs tinge the sky of District Three a pale red, Huxley pulls Alia out of her home. They bring with them a bag of necessities and tell only Gordie about their plan.

She watches the sky turn from the cabin. They’re safe, and that’s more than most from District Three can say.

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district four.**

She doesn’t remember not being able to swim (but she imagines a time before, when sinking and falling and being caught was her entire life). 

Her parents tell her that Cascadia taught her when she was little. Ariel believes it; Cas has never been anything but the perfect older sister. (The person who knows her better than anyone else. Cascadia was the one who taught her how to swim, and Cascadia’s going to be the one who comes home from the Games.)

So when she’s 16 and reaped (her name loud and clear through the mic. Her name said in a capitol accent: _Ariel Pressman_ ), Cas volunteering doesn’t surprise her at all. (Ariel still screams, loud as she can. She still rushes towards the stage, still tries to pull her sister back. Someone grabs her, hugging her to them. Cas is pulled away and Ariel decides it’s all her fault.)

“You’ll win,” she tells her. “You’ll win, and you’ll come home, and everything will be fine.” It’s more for herself than for Cascadia.

Cas still nods. “Just a few weeks, then I’ll be back. I promise.” 

She sounds sure and certain, and, fuck, Ariel believes her. No one else does. Cas is small and stern. People have a hard time liking her at first, but she’s a born leader. She does what needs to be done. She’s the bravest person Ariel knows. (She’s her best friend, her only sister. Cas _has_ to come home.)

Cascadia is paraded around in a dress that moves like water next to a boy so scared he looks like he might faint. District Four is known for it’s volunteers, but that doesn’t mean each tribute is a perfect weapon to win the Games. They don’t train people as punishingly as District One and Two. The volunteers from Four are the most desperate. They don’t do it for the glory. They do it for the riches promised, for the life of comfort. They do it because they have to.

Ariel spends her days in front of the TV watching the Games, and her nights out by the docks. She’ll slip her feet into the water and watch the waves form. There are no clouds in the sky, and the stars shine on the ocean. It’s home; it’s the same place it was before Cas had to leave, and she doubts it’ll change too much after everything is over. 

On the second night, when the moon is full and bright, when she starts to wonder if she’ll be able to sleep at home, where the TV never switches off and Capitol voices haunt her, she sees him steering his boat towards the dock.

“Hey,” he says, spotting her easily in the moonlight. She’s facing him from where she sits on the dock. “You okay?”

When she looks up at him makes eye contact and splashes her feet through the water, his face lights with recognition. “Oh.” He’s quiet, but she still hears him. 

She nods. “Yep.”

“I’m sorry about Cascadia.” (Everyone knows her Cas. People know Ariel because of her. It doesn’t hurt. She almost likes being in known in association to Cas. It makes her feel special, being the sister of someone so undeniably amazing. Cas is everything Ariel has ever wanted to be. That’ll never change.)

“Me too.”

There’s a half second of silence. She stands up, wonders if it’s time to go home, time to try sleeping.

He holds out his hand for her to shake. “I’m Hudson.” 

She takes it. “Ariel.”

On the third night, when she gets to the docks early, and Hudson gets there late (both arrive on purpose), he offers to take her out on his boat. She turns him down politely, and he lingers for a few moments too long.

On the fourth night, he asks again. She thinks for a half a second and accepts.

(Somewhere in between, Ariel watches Cas kill a boy. Her face is blank. Ariel doesn’t turn away from the TV once. In some alternate universe, that’s her right there, standing over a dead boy’s body.)

On the boat, in the open water, so far away that she can’t see the lights of home anymore (this isn’t allowed, but the Peacekeepers don’t care. It’s something about the sea salt in the air and water), there are entire moments in which she doesn’t think of Cas. She feels half guilty, but there’s a breeze, and cool night air, and a nearly full moon filling the sky. Hudson points out stars, and Ariel even smiles.

On the fifth night, she finds out that it’s his dad’s old boat. They don’t go as far away; she can still see the faint lights of home. 

“When do you sleep?” Hudson asks her.

She doesn’t really know the answer. She falls asleep sometime between the end of the night and the start of the day. Ariel shrugs. She stares at the sky.

“I like it here, being under the stars, better than being at home.”

She can feel his eyes on her as he murmurs a quiet, “Me too.” It’s been three days (which sounds like less than it feels) and she’s never heard him quiet while surrounded by blue. You’re allowed to be loud at sea, even when it’s dark.

On the sixth night, there’s a blanket and pillow on the boat. She falls asleep quickly, and by the time she wakes, just as the sky begins to turn pink, they’re back at the docks. Ariel thanks him, and he smiles at her.

“No problem.”

He walks her part way home. On her street corner, they stand close for a second too long.

On the seventh night, he lies down next to her. They stare at the sky, at an inky black speckled with light.

“Is there anything out there?” she asks. “If you keep sailing, if you go as far as you can go, is there anything out there?”

“I don’t know.” He pauses. “I’ve thought about it,” Hudson admits slowly. “About leaving.”

“Could I go with you?”

He turns his body towards her, gaze tracing the soft profile of her face as she continues to stare at the stars. She can see him watching her out of the corner of her eye. She thinks she likes being watched by him. “Yeah,” he says. “Come with me.”

On the eighth night, they barely leave the dock. They spend it lying beside each other on the faded blanket he always brings. She keeps finding herself scooting closer to him. She blames the salt water breezes that pass over them.

Hudson tells her stories about his family. In one night, she suddenly knows him, his favorite color and favorite food and his dream of seeing snow. She knows about his family, about his parents and his younger sister’s greatest fears. Ariel learns that his biggest fear is losing his sister.

That night, Ariel tells one story, of Cas taking her out to swim in the ocean, of waves crashing over head and Cas’ hand held tight in her own.

“And she taught me how to swim, too,” Ariel adds quietly. It doesn’t feel right to be loud while it’s so dark out, even when they’re out at sea. She feels like she’s disturbing some sort of peace. “I don’t know a time before her.”

On the ninth night, he tells her softly that Cas could win. She doesn’t respond. When she’s out here with him, she doesn’t think about the Games. That’s enough. 

Hudson doesn’t get it (he doesn’t try; she doesn’t mind). He doesn’t get it at all, watching someone you love _so so_ much resort to doing whatever it takes to survive (they’re all kids).

But, she doesn’t need someone who gets it, she just needs someone who cares. 

He thinks Cas could get home, and that’s all she needs (even more than quiet and a moment away).

On the tenth night, Cascadia dies while Ariel is out at sea. Hudson walks her home in the morning. He still cares then. That’s still enough.

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district five.**

Solara Bingham was born six years before Cass was reaped. That summer was hot and dry, but the houses in the Victor’s Village stayed cool. Ada didn’t have any friends (no one wants to be friends with the girl who has Victors for parents. It loses its novelty quick after people realize that all a Victor really is is someone who won but now wishes they hadn’t), but if she did, she would’ve invited them over to revel in the cold air with her.

There was Hydro Bingham, but he had his own too cold house. Now, during the hot summers, she still doesn’t invite him over. He comes with too many loose ends. Ada just takes Solara.

_(It had to be someone, Addy. But why Cass?)_

Solara calls her Addy (just like Hydro. She hates when he does it, but Solara makes it sound right) and spends summers at her house. They play dress up with the fancy dresses in her mom’s closet while she’s off in the Capitol, and leave the Games on mute in the living room to meet the mandatory viewing requirement.

Hydro walks her over, as though little Solara will get lost walking next door if he’s not there, but never stays. Ada almost invites him every time but never actually goes through with it. 

_(Would you rather it be you? She’s dead, Hydro. At least it’s not one of us.)_

During the winter, Ada will walk Solara into town for pastries at the bakery. It doesn’t snow in their part of Five, but the nights and mornings can get cold, so Ada always forces Solara into an extra coat. Hydro helps her with it. Every time they go into town, Solara invites him along with them. He always turns them down (gently. Ada thinks he loves Solara just as much as she does). 

The baker always slips Solara an extra cookie. Ada always tips well. 

“I want snow,” Solara tells her. She’s holding on tight to Ada’s hand. They swing it back and forth between them. 

“Snow? You’ll have to go to Seven for snow. That’s a pretty far trip.”

Solara shrugs. “Hydro can make some out of paper. He made it for me yesterday.”

Solara lives between the Pressmans and Binghams. Sometimes Ada wonders if it’s fair how much time she spends with her. Maybe she’s asking too much, maybe she’s taking too much. 

She reasons with herself that _maybe Hydro Bingham deserves this._

_(She didn’t deserve it. No one deserves it. It just happens. Get over it Addy. I can’t just get over her dying right in front of us.)_

She’s seventeen when Hydro Bingham follows Solara inside. One of them mentions that their air conditioner is broken. Ada stares for a second too long before closing the door. (Their mom practically lives in the Capitol. Her parents are at the Games. They raised themselves. Hydro and Ada raised Solara. They’re all still just kids.)

_(Well you’re going to have to. I don’t want to. Grow up, Addy! You know, Hydro, I never got why Cass hated you, but now I do. You just don’t understand how to care about anyone but yourself.)_

Ada and Solara have plans to bake cupcakes (it’s too hot to walk to the bakery), and Solara tugs Hydro into the kitchen with them. The Games remain on mute in the living room.

Later, while Solara sleeps in a pillow fort the three of them built, Hydro approaches Ada slowly.

“Cass deserved better,” he says quietly. She can’t tell if it’s because Solara is sleeping, or for some other reason that won’t make much sense to her. “I’m sorry for being an asshole about it, way back then.”

She blinks at his apology. They were kids. Cass had just died right in front of them on the TV screen. “It’s fine.”

The corners of his mouth tilt up ever so slightly, but, besides that, he doesn’t acknowledge her words. “But we’re older now. They,” he gestures towards the living room, towards the TV and the Games, “want a show. One of us is next. It’s inevitable.”

Ada breathes in, slow and deep. Beside them, under the draped blankets propped up by chairs, Solara shifts. They both turn to stare. 

Hydro continues. “And if it happens, I’m not gonna try to win it. Neither of us are Cass. I’m jumping off the platform. It’ll blow me to bits, but that’s better than making it.” He says it simply, like it’s an easy idea. His words sound like facts rather than thoughts. 

“Hydro…” she pauses for a moment. “You can’t…”

He frowns. “Have you seen our parents? They survived the Games. They didn’t win anything. They’re gone. I don’t,” he looks down at Solara again and takes a shaky breath in. Ada hasn’t talked to him like this since they were eleven. This is all happening a little too fast for her. “I don’t want to ever be them.”

“Why are you telling me this, Hydro?” she asks in a rush. 

He stares at her. “So you know.”

Hydro comes over a few more times over the summer, hangs out with them. Solara’s getting older, though, her interests drifting from childhood. Ada thinks this is the gradual growing up she missed out on. (Cass died and her parents were gone and Ada raised herself.)

On reaping day next year, Ada goes to Solara to help her get ready. Hydro opens the door to let her in. She helps Solara into her best dress, the one they’d bought the week before after the last day of school. There’s a prep team at the Bingham house just like how there’s one at the Pressman’s, but Solara insists that _Addy_ helps dress her. 

They all walk to the district center together, her parents and his parents and Solara and Hydro and Ada. (The Capitol wants a show. They’re watching every second of this.)

“It’s our last one,” Hydro says. She wishes he sounded excited. For one of them, this is it.

“Are you nervous?” she asks softly. 

He shakes his head. She doesn’t believe him.

When the girl's name is pulled from the bowl, Ada really does believe that it’s her own name on the little slip. Instead, _Solara Bingham_ is read in a sick Capitol accent, and Ada screams. 

“I volunteer!” she pushes through the crowd. People are moving out of her way. Their escort is smiling. (The Capitol wants a show.) “I volunteer as tribute!”

Ada thinks she loves one person in the entire world. It’s Solara. Solara is never going into the Games. Ada will do anything in her power to keep her in District Five.

She doesn’t think as she rushes towards the stage, but, as soon as she reaches the stairs, it hits her. She’ll be dead in a week. (She’d jump off the platform too. Hydro will cover Solara’s eyes, will hide the images from her, and Ada won’t give anyone the satisfaction of watching her lose herself.)

Ada’s not ready for that. She’s accepted it, though. She realizes now that there’s a difference.

She’s shaking on the stage, her parents behind her, faces as blank as ever, when they call his name. Her stomach drops. Her eyes go big. _Hydro Bingham._ There’s whispers in the crowds, the two Binghams, the lack of subtlety, the lack of coincidence. It’s like the Capitol is right in front of them, staring them down, asking what they’ll do. It’s like the Capitol is testing them. 

Hydro moves to stand next to her. He’s shaking too. Both ignore Solara’s cries. (One of them was supposed to stay. This isn’t right.)

Ada wonders if there’s anything that’s really hers in this world.

Hydro Bingham grabs her hand. He squeezes it once. Everything is different now. One of them is going to win. They’ll do anything for this. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district six.**

Alta dreams of riding in one of those trains. When they fly by, fly to the Capitol, she wonders if maybe it’d be worth it to be in the Games just so she could see some place other than home.

Halden’s dad drives the trains. He tells her about it in a passing comment. They’re partners on some energy project. His girlfriend, Kia, is sitting across the room, and he keeps glancing at her.

In District Six, the skin of the victors is tinged yellow from morphine. The people dislike travel, the houses are small and worn down, and even the bakery bread is tinged with a little bit of tesserae. 

It’s just barely enough.

“Have you ever been on one of the trains?” she asks. 

Halden turns back to her. He looks impatient and tired. School ends in a week. The reaping is in two weeks.

“A couple times,” he tells her quickly. His eyes don’t return to Kia. Alta calls that a victory.

“Where did you go?”

He pauses. “Can we just finish this project? I need the grade.”

Alta agrees without much hesitation. After school, Winton LeClaire walks her home. She invites him inside for dinner (she worries he doesn’t have enough food at his house, and, more importantly, she enjoys his company), and he accepts. 

She doesn’t think about trains (or Halden Bingham) for two weeks. Then as school ends and the days become hotter, Kia and Winton are reaped. It’s only two names, just like every year, but everything changes. 

(She’s known Winton since she was little. He was her first real friend, since everyone says Casey doesn’t count. Sometime between ages thirteen and fifteen, she falls in love with him, but doesn’t tell anyone, not even her sister. By that time, he’s already practically family. She doesn’t want to ruin things.)

There are no power outages during the Games (Alta had always wondered if the outages were purposeful. This furthers that idea), but she still watches in the District Center. Houses get stuffy in District Six, but, in the summer, the District Center is the prettiest it ever is. Alta sets up a blanket on the ground and watches the Games. 

On the second day, Halden appears beside her. 

“Can I sit here?” he asks, gesturing down at the blanket (it’s a faded purple, and maybe her favorite. Casey told her not to take it, not to ruin it with the Games, but Alta hadn’t listened). 

“Yeah.” She scoots over a little for him. Thirty minutes later, he offers her half of his sandwich and she accepts after only a moment of thought.

They don’t talk once. Alta doesn’t mind. It’s comforting. She doesn’t leave until the sky is just beginning to turn orange. He helps her fold up her blanket. 

He’s there the next day too. They don’t talk then either. They watch Winton kill a boy, and they watch Kia cry. 

(Casey asks if she’s doing okay. Alta nods. Casey doesn't look like she believes her, but she also doesn’t push it.)

On the fifth day, Halden asks her if she’s dating Winton. It’s not out of the blue, on the screen, Winton is telling Kia that he’d always liked her. It hurts a little more than she ever thought it would.

“No, just friends.”

He’s staring at her instead of the screen even though Kia and Winton are still on it. “I thought Kia and I were the real thing, you know, but…” 

She doesn’t know why he’s telling her this. She lets him, though. 

“It’s all just an act,” Alta says softly. “So they can get home.”

Halden turns back to the screen. He seems to study it. “If you say so.”

At some point, the rules change. Two people can come home now. Halden and Alta both take a deep breath in and never let it out.

(Neither are surprised when the rules change back. Things like that are too good to be true. The Capitol always wins, and they’ll never let anyone forget.)

Everything changes again when Winton and Kia come home together. It’s berries and an act of defiance and, fuck, Alta’s not sure even she really believes it. It’s a grudgingly given win. It shouldn’t even be a win, but the only alternative the Capitol had was to let both of them die. 

They watch the end together (just like the rest of the Games). Halden stares up at the screen like he doesn’t know what’s going on (she doesn’t know either).

“They’ll both be home,” he says, but the statement feels like a question.

There’s silence for a moment. They’re both in shock. People are gathering in the District Center. They’re all in shock too, murmurs rippling through the crowd. 

“Would you do it?” Alta asks. “Would you risk it all for someone?” She already has her own answer.

He doesn’t even think. “Yeah. I’d do it in an instant.”

If Winton and Kia want to survive (and if they want everyone else to survive too), they’ll have to spend the rest of their lives telling people that they couldn’t imagine a world without the other. Alta can’t imagine that for them. 

The star-crossed lovers of District Six. The pair no one sees coming. 

(Alta cries that night. Casey holds her close and doesn’t ask _what’s wrong_ once.)

Halden is at her door in the morning. “Do you believe them?” he asks. 

She blinks. It’s early, earlier than she thinks she’s ever seen him. The sun is just rising and she doubts he got any sleep. 

Alta shakes her head. Halden breathes a sigh of relief.

When Winton and Kia return home, District Six celebrates (and they think. Casey whispers words of rebellion. More Peacekeepers move in). In the district center, Alta sits next to Halden while food is served. They both stare at the Victor’s. 

Winton and Kia seldom leave their new homes. Alta doesn’t try, not once, to see Winton. Halden approaches Kia (Alta watches him, soft and in the background) and is ignored. The next morning, he’s at Alta’s house. They walk to school together. (It hurts to be someone’s second choice, but she’s used to it.)

Sometime between the next reaping and the day the hovercrafts appear to take them to a place Alta is almost sure doesn’t exist, she falls for Halden Bingham. She’s not sure how it happens, if it’s only because he’s there and Winton’s not anymore, but suddenly it’s him and it’s almost like there was never a time before. (He offers to take her somewhere on the train, remembers her dream of leaving Six. In an old book his mom has, one Alta’s absolutely certain is banned, he shows her pictures of places other than home. Maybe that’s when she falls.)

And when the bombs come pouring down, when the clouds turn red, and the trains stop running, he holds her hand while they sit underground. Winton and Kia are off fighting a war while Alta dreams of sunlight, and home. Halden is beside her.

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district seven.**

Briar is pregnant. Acacia thinks for approximately one second before volunteering. 

She’s the spare. Castanea’s there, forever and always. She’s past reaping age. One day, she’ll take over the family paper mill. She’ll marry that one boy from down the street and they won’t have any kids (“Not when they could get reaped.”)

And Briar screams so loud it must hurt, but it doesn’t matter because Acacia’s already partway to the stage. 

She recognizes the boy who ends up beside her, Grist Visser, one of the kind boys from her class. He’s not steely eyed when he shakes her hand. He smiles at her; it makes her feel safe (she won’t feel safe again for a long time. She doesn’t know that yet, though).

Grist is beside her through it all. He trains with her, even though the Careers ask to talk to him (Grist is tall and strong and fast. He’s a threat. Acacia is not). He tells her jokes, ones that make her smile and laugh. He tells her about how he dreams of a place not covered in forest. 

“District Nine,” he says. “I bet everything shines gold there. Just imagine fields of wheat.”

She doesn’t. She imagines going home. 

In the arena, after she runs fast and far as soon as the cannons go off, he finds her quickly, with a backpack on his back and an ax in his hand. She doesn’t ask him how he got the supplies. She doesn’t think he wants to remember, and she doesn’t want to know.

And they survive. (But only in the simplest sense of the word. Every night, as the pictures flash across the sky and the Anthem plays, Grist cries a steady stream of tears. In the morning, there’s always a parachute waiting for them. She wonders if he makes the connection. She does.)

In the end, after that horrible girl, Lex, from District Two dies (Acacia kills her with an ax. It’s her only kill, and it’s easier than she thought it would be. It’s like swinging at a tree), and it’s just her and Grist, he smiles at her, small and sad. 

She starts to speak. “You deserve to win, Gris. You can see District Nine. You called it golden, right? You should see that.”

He shakes his head and now she’s crying too. There’s a buzzing near her ear, a camera. They’re still in the Games and she can’t forget. 

Grist Visser, the kindest person she’s ever known, takes an ax to his own throat. Two seconds later, her name is echoed through the arena. (He’s still there when the hovercraft appears for her. She pauses for a moment and stares. There’s nothing left for her to do. His body is pulled away, and she’s on the hovercraft floating out of the arena.)

A week later, she’s back on the screen for an interview. They ask her what the hardest part of the Games was. 

“Surviving.”

The interviewer laughs, and she plays it off as a joke. Later, when they mention Grist, a tear will run down her cheek. She won’t say anything. 

At a dinner the night before she gets to go home (the nightmares will go away once she’s home. That’s how it works. She’ll be safe there), she meets President Pfieffer for the first time. He scares her more than the dreams she has of the arena and congratulates her on her victory just like everyone else (she follows her escort around, a half step behind. Her mentors disappeared somewhere just as they arrived. She wishes she could have done the same).

“District Seven must be very proud,” he says, and she nods.

“Thank you.” She ignores how the rooms feels colder when Pffiefer stares. She stares back. Somewhere, right in the corner of her eye, she thinks she sees Grist, a happy, smiling, light Grist. The Grist she remembers from home. She doesn’t let herself search for him. 

A day later, the train arrives in Seven, fast and dizzying. She doesn’t sleep the entire ride there, but still spends it in her compartment. She keeps the door closed. No one tries to talk to her. (Grist appears again, right in front of her whenever she closes her eyes. She sees him die over and over. Acacia never stops swinging the ax at the girl from two. She never stops hearing her name said in that horrible Capitol accent.)

Castanea meets her at the station with their parents. They all hug and cry and Acacia promises to never leave home again (she can’t keep that promise. The Victory Tour looms over her. Then, it’s once a year for the rest of her life, a month in the Capitol watching kids die. She’s a kid). She moves into the Victors Village with them. Only half of Cas’s stuff appears in the new home, though, and Acacia wonders how much longer she has before her sisters gone away to stay at a house in town. 

(She thinks Cas might be afraid of her. Acacia thinks she’s afraid of herself too.)

The nightmares still plague her even while she sleeps at home. The blood remains under her fingernails. Grist remains a constant. She takes to walking through town during the night. It’s not allowed, but she’s District Sevens first female victor in years. They make exceptions for her (the first night they warn her. The second night they ignore her). 

Six months later, it’s still much of the same. She hears that Briar gives birth to a beautiful baby girl (Acacia refuses to meet her). Acacia goes on the Victory Tour. District One and Two scare her, their people much like their tributes. It’s sharp there, and cold. 

District Three is bleak, and District Four is bright. It’s still sunny, even in the middle of winter. They dress her up in a sleeveless dress and by the end she’s tinged pink. 

District Five, Six, and Eight fly by. She barely remembers the words she says (she remembers the words just as well as she remembers the tributes. Grist cried for them. He should be here). 

In Nine, she cries as hard as he did each night. She adds on to her speech, talks, for just a moment, about how Grist dreamt of fields of wheat. She doubts it’s any consolation for the lives lost, but it’s what she offers (and the only time she offers it during the tour). 

District Ten smells of manure, and District Eleven, the largest district of them all, is almost as warm as Four but nowhere near as bright. District Twelve feels as though it’s covered in a layer of coal, but she likes the best of all. It reminds her a bit of home, somehow. In certain places, it’s just the right shade of green.

In District Seven, she shakes the hand of the son of the mayor. 

“I think I’ve seen you out at night. Didn’t realise that was allowed,” he says to her. She puts a face to a name, Hardy Bingham. One day he’ll be mayor, just like his mom (his dad’s gone. She remembers him around town, and remembers hearing how it all ended. People say Hardy found him in the front lounge. She thinks of Grist saying _goodbye_ ). Acacia worries for a second that he’s going to try to put an end to it, to her going out instead of sleeping, but there’s some sort of strange glimmer in his eyes. 

“They let you get away with things when you win.”

“And late night walks is what you chose?”

She shrugs. “Can’t sleep.”

The next night, he steps out as she passes by the mayor’s house. 

“Can I join you?”

She looks up at him. “Sure.”

Hardy’s there the next night too, and then the night after that. At some point, he grabs her hand while she shakes, and listens to the stories she has to tell before she'll be able to forget. At some point, she invites him back to the Village. She falls asleep beside him. She’s not sure if he sleeps, but she does.

(He’s nowhere near as broken as her. She doesn’t care. He likes her for who she is now, and that’s more than she can say for most.)

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district eight.**

Ashleen walks home from the factories with Harris. The Victors Village is right on the edge of town, but he’s still with her the entire way home. (They used to be neighbors, before Calica came home.)

Sometimes, he’ll stay for dinner. They have too much food now. No one in District Eight has too much food. They let Harris take the leftovers home.

Calica comes out of the Games the same person she was before. She comes out bigger than the world. People sneak in and out of the house (Calica tells her they’re on their way to a place that doesn’t exist). The President visits them once. Harris is with her when she meets him. He meets him too. (He’s a cold man who’s eyes never leave you. He leaves Ashleen shivering even though they’re nearing summer and the air is growing stuffy.)

After that, no more people pass in and out of their home. Calica is still gone just as often. She’s nearly never home, and when she is, she spends her time glaring at the red phone in the living room. Ashleen doesn’t know what to think.

(District Eight is rebellious in nature. Pamphlets get passed around the factories, people whisper during work. Some believe that District Thirteen still stands. Others say that it’s just a matter of time before the Capitol starts asking for more than just two lives.)

For a little while after the visit, Ashleen takes to staying at Harris’ house. His family is kind, and his house is cozy. The furniture in it doesn’t remind her of a place she’s never seen. His sister reminds Ashleen of herself. She wonders if that makes her Calica.

Her parents tell her that she can stop working at the factories. Ashleen ignores them. Somehow, at some point, that stupid job became one of the few things that feels normal. (Calica tells her to _cut down her hours at least_ and Ashleen obliges. She still walks home with Harris.)

In June, Calica takes Ashleen out to the edge of town. It’s odd right from the start, when Calica comes home and says, very loudly, “We should go for a walk before it gets too hot, Ash.” Harris is over. He’s helping her with a class project. When Ashleen opens her mouth to ask _what’s going on,_ Calica presses a finger to her lips before pulling Ash out of the house. Harris moves to follow them, but Calica shakes her head. 

They don’t talk until they’re well out of the Village.

“There’s a plan this year,” Calica whispers to her. “We’re going to fix everything.”

They’re still walking. Ashleen’s eyes are wide. “Cali, I don’t understand.”

“The Games are already fixed. Thirteen is real,” Calica says. “The Capitol will bomb the District Center as soon as it starts. When the power goes out and officials start to leave, go as far north as you can. Take as many people as possible. Have a bag ready. We’ll meet you up there.”

“Cali,” Ashleen pulls her sister to a stop. “Are you sure?”

Calica smiles at her, faint but certain. “We need this.”

They walk back together in silence. Calica buys a quart of blueberries (at Ashleen’s request; they’re Harris’ favorite) and spends the rest of the day at home. 

Calica leaves the next week for the Capitol. They watch for her on the TV. Ashleen takes Harris out on the same walk Calica gave her.

Harris was never one of the kids who made the pamphlets. He never whispered rebellious words, or thought of a world outside Eight. 

He’s silent as she speaks. 

“And you think it’s worth it?” Harris asks as she finishes. His words are slow. He’s thinking. 

“Yeah.” There’s no hesitation in her voice. He nods. 

They make plans to leave the district. Ashleen spreads whispers of bombs, and Harris passes pamphlets through hands.

As the broadcast cuts out, as the tributes from Eight are lifted from the arena, as the hovercrafts approach, Ashleen slips out of her house. Harris follows her. 

(He turns around to face her. She’s in a rush. Ashleen counts seconds as he presses his lips to hers. 

Her eyes flicker. “What was that for?” she asks softly. She’s in a daze. 

“In case I don’t get another chance.”

She grabs his hand. They rush away.)

The fence is off. They slip under. People follow. The ground shakes even as they walk. The sky turns red, and Ashleen can hear the bombs, nothing’s ever been louder. They continue north.

Harris holds her hand tight the entire time. They walk together.

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district nine.**

Her first memory is of her and Harely running through a field of wheat. Calypso is somewhere behind them. Caly’s not gone until later, until the year with air so thick even Aluma can barely breathe.

Harely’s nearly a year older than her, nearly a head taller, and, somehow, her best friend. They grow up in fields of wheat. He plays with her and her cousins, and, when Caly dies, cries with her.

District Nine is quiet. It’s golden and soft and quiet. They win when the Capitol wants them to win, and, other than that, remain forgotten. They like that. 

Harely calls Aluma golden in a hushed tone as they lay in the fields. Their parents own the fields, the largest ones. They grow up bright and happy. 

Aluma turns to him. They’re twelve. It’s spring, and she knows people who are quietly counting down the days to their first reaping. 

She ignores his words. “What if we’re taken?” she asks in her own soft voice. 

He shakes his head. “It won’t be us.”

They’re twelve. It’s the start of summer, the air so dry and hot that Aluma feels as though she is baking. They’re names are not chosen. The fieldhands go to the Games. Aluma and Harely spend the summer in between homes full of shade and comfort. 

She spends one day each year worried. The reaping is somehow always the hottest day. Harely thinks the Capitol makes it that way. He jokes about it, and she always laughs. (They’re never reaped. It’s almost always fieldhands. On the way home, Harley squeezes her hand twice, as if to remind himself that they’re both still there. She appreciates that.)

The day after their second reaping, his sister is born. He chooses the name Sunnoria. Aluma calls her Sunny.

“She’ll be golden too,” Harley says. They’re standing in the fields, surrounded by the color. Sunny is bright pink right now, but Aluma can imagine it easily. At thirteen, they can easily see over the stalks of wheat. Their parents get upset with them for standing in the fields, but not enough for Aluma and Harley to want to stop. 

After their fourth reaping, while they sit in the fields, while the sun sets and casts them gold, Harely kisses her. She asks _what was that for_ with a soft voice, and he plays with her hair. They give themselves another year of not worrying. Sunny turns one. They take her out to the fields with them.

He kisses her again after their fifth reaping (and all the days in between).

“What would you do,” he asks. “If I said I love you?”

She stares at him. “Say it back.”

(Her favorite memory is of them running through a field of wheat. Sunnoria is somewhere behind them, running too. The sun is setting and everything is tinged gold. Aluma wonders how life could get any better.

She doesn’t think about how it could get worse.)

At eighteen, during their last reaping, after holding her breath until a field hands name is read for the female tribute, her cousin’s name is called. She cries right alongside nearly everyone else, because Samson is light and soft and _golden_ and nothing like his brother. It feels wrong to hear his name said with a Capitol accent.

Aluma spends the day after in the fields. Harely lays beside her. They’re eighteen and free. She decides to refuse to watch the Games, and he refuses right alongside her. 

The sun is setting three days after the reaping when he asks her to marry him. Everything's tinged gold. He doesn’t have a ring, but she still accepts. 

They run through the fields casting shadows everywhere and laughing so hard it hurts. They’re young, but they’re not kids anymore. They’re free. (They’re eighteen. They grew up bright and happy. They grew up lucky.)

On the TV, Samson falls in love with a kind boy from Seven who tells stories of trees so tall you can’t see the top. Sam whispers of fields of wheat colored golden. They cry each night while the anthem plays, and, at the very end, after the girl from Two and the boy from Twelve kill each other (Twelve’s is revenge for a district partner. Twelve’s is a whole other universe that could’ve been), Sam and Grist share a handful of berries. No one stops them. No one wins. 

A rebellion starts. District Nine turns red. 

But that’s all later. Right now, an entire district is rolling its eyes as Aluma and Harley announce their marriage. The two are colored gold, and everything is okay.

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district ten.**

Hadden Bingham is fourteen and the first winner Ten has seen in as long as Alyss can remember. Her mom stares at the screen as he’s announced victor. 

“He’s a child,” she says softly. 

Cassia is asleep in the other room. She’s sick again. Alyss is afraid to sleep next to her on the bed.

“He’s older than me,” Alyss replies. He was picked during her second Reaping. He had three slips in the bowl. Alyss had cried when she got home. 

Her mom lets out a breath. She turns to Alyss. She doesn’t say anything.

Three weeks later, Hadden Bingham comes home. While District Ten is celebrating, Cass gets better. They have food, real food, sweet, rich things that make Alyss feel luxurious (they live in District Ten. Her family runs a dairy farm. She very rarely feels luxurious). Hadden smiles once during the entire feast. Alyss only barely notices. 

She doesn’t remember much about him after that. Cass tells her that he doesn’t come to school much (but, to be fair, Cass isn’t always able to make it either), and, the more Alyss thinks about it, she doesn’t see him around the District much. She thinks that if she got to live in a house like that, she wouldn’t leave it much either. (Their mom tells Cass to _go easy on the poor boy_ as Cassia goes off on how he thinks he’s above them all just because he won the Games. Alyss doesn’t say anything. She wonders how bad the Games could really be.)

Cassia is sick again and Alyss is fifteen when a fire burns bright through the town. It burns so bright that her room is lit up like it’s the sunniest day of the year, and so hot that Alyss can feel it on her skin the second she steps outside. They have to hold damp cloths over their mouths to keep away the smoke.

The saddest part is, only one house really burns. Kleava Aldrich and her family die. Cass whispers that she was _the only one Hadden really cared about._ Alyss wonders how she knows that. 

Hadden Bingham, Alyss notices, still seldom leaves his home while in Ten. In the Capitol, however, he becomes somewhat of a sweetheart. That year, the male tribute from Ten nearly wins. The majority of the programming focuses on Hadden.

Not even three years later, it’s her last Reaping, and, coincidentally, the first time she ever hears her name said in a Capitol accent. The summer sun is just a little too hot, and Alyss is wearing a sundress that used to be Cassia’s. Cass isn’t even there. She’s at home, so sick that the Pressmans are worried she might die. Before her name was pulled (and even after), Alyss’ biggest worry was that Cass would pass in the time the Reaping took.

On the stage, she makes eye contact with Hadden once before turning to face the district. It’s his fourth year being a mentor. He’s lost eight kids.

Her parents come to see her. There are Peacekeepers by the door. This is the closest Alyss has ever been to one. Soon, she realises, she’ll be on a train out of the District for the first (and probably last) time ever. 

Her mom is crying. Her dad won’t look at her.

“Cassia needs medicine, real medicine,” her mom says softly. Alyss nods. She thinks that everything in her life has been about Cassia, that she bases things around when Cass was sick or well. Those are her bookends to clusters of events. _The summer Cass couldn’t stop coughing. The winter Cass turned blue._

And then Alyss is on the train. It’s moving so fast that the outside world is just a blur. The Escort tells her and the poor boy whose name also got pulled (the one Alyss is afraid to get to know. She’ll have to kill him, if it comes down to it) that it’ll still be a little while before they reach the Capitol. She mutters something about cow manure. Alyss doesn’t listen.

On a couch, Hadden sits and watches the other Reapings. There’s a girl from Two who smiles when she walks up on stage, and a pair from Twelve who cry while they stand together. Alyss’ own seems boring in comparison.

She sits down next to him. The boy (should she bother to get to know him, or see him as competition already?) has gone off to his room. Alyss wants to avoid being alone for as long as possible. 

“I want to win,” she tells him. He turns to her. He sighs. 

“You know you don’t win anything, right?”

She ignores him. “My sister’s sick.”

“They’ll hold that against you.” On the TV, some Capitol strategist is talking about betting odds. Alyss is near the bottom. 

“I don’t care.”

He sighs again. “Okay.”

In the morning, he tells her that he’s going to be her mentor. She tries hard not to think about the fact that he’s not even a year older than her, that if she’s a child, he’s one too. She catches their reflection in a mirror on the train. He looks so young. They both do.

Hadden won his games slowly. After the Bloodbath, he was the youngest one left. He allied himself with the Careers (how, she doesn’t know. They don’t often go for the Tributes from Ten) and tricked them into killing each other. He was the prettiest one in the Games that year, and the smartest one too.

He refuses to talk about his Games with her.

Instead, he talks strategy. It’s day and night. Alyss hears his voice while she’s falling asleep.

“You have to be willing to do anything to survive,” he says. “There’s no right or wrong. It’s all a show. It’s entertainment. You can’t forget that.”

Alyss nods. She has to win. It’s not just her who dies if she loses. Alyss doesn’t think she can handle the idea of Cassia's blood on her hands.

In the parade, she looks like a pasture at sunset, green and orange and speckled with flowers. Her district partner’s hand is sweaty, and her legs won’t stop shaking, and she keeps being told to smile. The only time she smiles a real, genuine smile, is at the very start, when she catches Hadden’s eye.

At the Training Center, she finds herself to be perfectly average at just about everything. Hadden tells her that’s good. She can’t stop thinking about the girl from Two and her knives, or the boy from Seven who seems to tower over everyone.

“Just run,” Hadden tells her. “When the Games start, run so fast it hurts. Run until you can’t run anymore. I’ll figure it out for you from there.”

She trusts him. 

On her last night before the Games, he takes up to the roof. The elevator makes her dizzy, but the sky, the blue and the light, reminds her of home. 

“You’re winning,” he tells her, slow and sure. She doesn’t ask him how he knows that. Alyss thinks he says it more for himself than for her. 

“Is it really not worth it, winning?” she asks. They’re not supposed to be up on the roof. Normally, breaking a rule like this would give her a sort of rush. Now, though, the adrenaline's gone. She misses it. She likes butterflies in her stomach more than this empty feeling.

Hadden stares at her. He thinks for a moment. “I’m not sure. Sometimes, it’s not worth it at all. Sometimes it is, though.” He pauses. “You’re not really winning, though. You’re just surviving. You don’t win anything.” He’s silent for a moment again. “And you’re pretty. They won’t forget about you.”

She doesn’t get to ask what he means, because suddenly an avox is motioning for them to leave, and Hadden is pulling her back into the elevator. 

The Arena is a town that reminds her of Ten’s center. It’s houses are new, and Alyss is scared of what's inside of them. She thinks now, now that she’s out and waiting for everything to start, now that there are only sixty seconds standing between her and whatever’s next, that maybe stepping off the plate would be the best choice. 

She thinks first of Cass, and then of Hadden. She doesn’t jump.

In the end, Alyss remembers three things from the Games.

  1. The Bloodbath. The knife in the boy beside her that she’d taken. Running so hard it hurt. An empty town that felt like home. The feeling that someone was watching her. Not being able to sleep that night. Not feeling safe.
  2. Her first kill. A boy who snuck up on her. Standing over him, a blank look on her face. It didn’t feel real. She’s suddenly a part of the games. She sets up camp in one of the houses and stops caring if the Careers find her. 
  3. The last night when she knew it was just her and the girl from Two. It’d felt weird to know that she was so close to winning. She remembers a poisonous cloud pushing them together. She remembers getting lucky with a shot. She remembers not thinking. 



Hadden is the first person she sees when she wakes up. He’s waiting for her, staring. It’s almost like he doesn’t believe she’s there.

The room she’s in is fluorescent in all the worst ways. It’s humming and painfully bright. The second she opens her eyes, she wants to close them again. 

“You won,” Hadden says softly. He’s quiet and she’s appreciative.

“Yeah.”

A week later, President Pfieffer places a crown atop her head. That night, on her way back to Ten, she slips into Hadden’s compartment. 

“Is it okay if--”

“Yeah.”

(When flashes of other people's lives wake her up, Hadden wraps a warm arm around her. She realizes now why he doesn't like talking about his Games.)

For a little while, a day, maybe two, she forgets about Cassia’s medicine, but by the time she’s heading home, it’s there. Cassia’s okay. Hadden helps her family move into the Village. Alyss takes to sleeping beside him. 

Two months later, Pfieffer calls to ask how _Cassia is doing._ Alyss doesn’t remember telling anyone but Hadden. She wonders what comes next. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district eleven.**

They work from sunrise to sunset each day during the harvesting season. No one is spared. 

It’s hot and humid and sticky.

It’s not fun work or easy work, but the Capitol tells them that it’s necessary work, that they feed the Districts. Maybe some of Eleven takes pride in that, but Ayra doesn’t really care much.

When she’s ten, the Games are somewhere snowy. She dreams of cold for weeks, even after Eleven’s tributes are killed and long breaks are over. And she shouldn’t care much for the Games, really, she shouldn’t, but it builds her dreams in ways nothing else does. She’ll never see snow or the ocean or mountains anywhere else but her TV screen.

She wants to be somewhere else. 

So when her sister’s name is called, loud and echo-y, Ayra doesn’t think twice before volunteering. And maybe Cass hates that, maybe Cass is willing to fight it with every ounce of her being, but rules are rules. 

And when Harvey Bingham’s name is called, it means almost nothing.

Only then they’re on the train and the reality of her situation is starting to set in and things are fading in ways they never have before and suddenly he’s the only one who’s there. 

She has a week left and kissing him is a mistake and Ayra knows that but fuck, what better time is there than now to be making mistakes? He kisses her back, his lips chapped and hair tangled. She doubts it means anything.

Later, when they’re at the Training Center, when it’s still the first day but she’s started counting down the hours until her death, he asks her if she has a plan. 

“No. Do you?”

He pauses, staring up at the ceiling. It’s smooth and blank but in the light of the Capitol, painted neon blue and purple. “I think I might just jump.”

“Jump?” She thinks maybe she might understand what he’s saying, but only barely. She thinks that she might not really fully understand anything right now. She’ll be dead in just over one hundred and forty four hours. 

He nods. “Jump off the platform. Get blown up. Doesn’t that sound better than getting killed by a Career five minutes in?” 

“I mean…” Yes. Yes, it doesn’t sound better. But a lot of things sound better. Winning sounds better, though Ayra doubts that’s a real option. Going home sounds better. 

“I just want some control,” Harvey finally says, slowly, likes he’s only just realising the words himself. She thinks, thinks about what it means to give up like that, wonders if she gave up the second she volunteered.

She doesn’t dream that night, doesn’t dream while she sleeps beside him, and she doesn’t dream the next night either. No one tells them off for leaving the same room in the morning. The number of hours between her and death continue to dwindle. 

Harvey doesn’t bring up his plan again, not as they train, not they lay awake in bed, not during the interviews, or as they fly to the Arena with only two hours left. Ayra thinks about it, though, wonders what good it’d do her family to have to watch her die slowly versus all at once.

The Arena is green. There’s a lake somewhere off in the distance, the clearest blue she thinks she’s ever seen. Behind her, there’s a mountain so tall that snow dots the top. Harvey’s across from her, close enough that he could hear her if she shouted, but far enough away that it’d be a struggle.

Their eyes meet. The clock is at thirty seconds. He nods.

(Her sister is at home watching. His sister too. Their parents are staring at the screens. It's probably hot there, back in Eleven, but here it's almost cold. There's a breeze.)

And Ayra’s scared, so incredibly scared. She's scared and worried and guilty feeling. But when her feet leave the plate, when she takes the step, she doesn't feel anything.

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district twelve.**

Supposedly, they’re in love. Allie doesn’t believe one bit of it.

When they interview her, near the end of the Games, when Cassandra and Harry are some of the few left, they ask her if she knew about Harry’s crush. (They should’ve asked her if she knew about the mentor’s plan. She still gives them a _yes._ This is how Cassandra gets home.) She doesn’t say anything about years of hatred. They’ve masked it well enough so far. It’s a fine line and people believe what they want to believe.

( _Cassandra runs to him when she hears the announcement. Together, they make plans to win. They both want to go home. Cassandra says she’ll do anything for it.)_

When Cass gets home, she tells Allie the Capitol is big and bright and scary. Allie dreams in neons, in the colors shown on the TV in the Victors Village. Harry will watch it with her while Cass spends as much time as she can out of the house (Allie’s heard there’s a guy in town. She wonders what the Capitol would think).

The first time she ever talks to Harry is after the Games. 

“He’s gonna have to stay with us,” Cass tells her quietly her first night back. They’re in her new room in their new house. Her parents are downstairs unpacking still. Cassandra can’t stop shaking. (When her name was Reaped, Cass’s name because it was in the bowl one more time than Allie’s, Cassandra hadn’t been shaking then. Now she does. Allie wonders what winning means.) “He’s moving in when the cameras come back. I _hate_ him, Al. I can’t do this.”

“You can do anything,” Allie tells her with a whisper. She thinks of bravery and silence and the strongest person she’s ever known. She tries hard not to think of Cass and a set of small knives and three kids dead. (Harry didn’t kill anyone. He watched, and he talked, and he tricked people into thinking things that were wrong, but he never killed.)

Two days later, Harry is in her kitchen. The cameras linger behind the door, and as she walks down the stairs, he turns to her with a finger pressed against his lips. He splits his breakfast with her, and she offers him a silent _thank you._

When the cameras are properly gone, and Cassandra with them, he asks her if she watched the Games. 

Allie nods. _(A woods that turns black at night. Trees so tall that you can’t see the top. A Career pack who lost their lights, and Victors who are now afraid of the dark. Things that chase Tributes up trees. A pair who hid and strategized and killed well enough to get home. A pair who got home together.)_

“My sister didn’t,” he says quietly. Cass told her that there’s mics in the house, that people are always watching them now. Allie wonders if Harry knows that. “I told her not to.” (Harry didn’t kill anyone. Cassandra’s kills flash before Allie’s eyes. Harry doesn’t see his family; Allie barely sees Cassandra. No one wins the Games.)

She becomes closer to Harry than Cass ever was. Him and Cassandra fake it, they smile at the cameras and kiss and laugh and joke, but the second the Capitol’s not watching, Cassandra disappears and Harry only talks to Allie.

They talk a lot. Neither leave the house much. Her parents still work in town so it’s often just her and Harry at home. (She thinks back to her old home, above the shop. It was small, but cozy. The furniture meant something. In the winters, it would get cold, but gave her an excuse to wrap herself in sweaters.)

“Why don’t you see your family?” Allie asks him. Spring is approaching rapidly, the snow outside beginning to melt for the last time.They’re facing one another on the couch. The record player is playing a vinyl Cassandra brought home from the Capitol for Allie. It makes her see colors. She keeps the volume down low, so quiet that it’s barely noticeable. It’s like a hum. 

“The more people they think I love, the less safe everyone is.” He pauses. Allie thinks of how Cassandra barely ever even sleeps at home now. She wonders if the house reminds her of the Games. “You’re safe though,” he adds softly. “‘Cause Cassandraandra already loves you. She made the mistake of mentioning you back then and made it safe for me.”

Allie thinks of the second time she talked to him, when she told him off for being an asshole to her sister, but kind to her. She wonders if he’d figured out who to love and who to ignore already. She wonders if he talks to her only because she’s there, because he’s allowed himself to talk to her.

She wonders if she’d do it differently.

_(“I just want to go home.” It’s all desperation. The forest is dark, it always is. It’s getting harder to remember a time before all of this. “I’d do anything.” Anything is winning now.)_

As summer nears, Harry whispers to Allie that Cassandra keeps leaving the district with some Seam boy. It makes Allie thinks of all the reasons why Harry and Cassandra wouldn’t work, all the reasons the Capitol has chosen to ignore. (He's too loud. They're both too stubborn. Cassandra has a hard time listening. Harry doesn't like being alone. Cassandra moves on too quickly. Harry struggles with change.)

At the reaping, he smiles at her until the cameras catch him. He catches himself, too, and keeps his eyes away from her (just like Cassandra. Allie doesn’t see Cassandra much anymore except for the nights she comes home late and lays next to Allie in her bed. Allie knows she’s supposed to sleep next to Harry, that Pfieffer wants the Districts to believe in their love. Allie also knows that both Cassandra and Harry are stubborn to a fault. She knows that they’ll do what they want until they face the consequences). 

The night before, as they sit on the couch and read the few books allowed by the Capitol, Harry whispers (anything important is whispered) that he’s afraid she’s not safe, that he’s afraid it’s his fault.

“Pfieffer knows, Allie,” he tells her. 

She stares at him. “He knows what?”

Harry doesn’t respond. On reaping day, when the girl and boy are both from the Seam and not the Victor’s Village, Allie swears that she can see his sigh of relief. When Harry and Cassandra leave for the Capitol, and she thinks she might miss Harry more. She wonders when her sister became a stranger (and thinks about a blank face standing over a dead body).

The two from Twelve die on the first day. Harry and Cassandra still have to stay in the Capitol for the whole month.

Nothing’s different when they return. She still spends entire days with Harry in the house, Cassandra still has her entire life far far away from them. Harry still whispers things she thinks he shouldn’t say, and Allie still wonders if there’s really anyone who believes that him and Cassandra are in love. 

_(It’s not jealousy_ she reasons _just common sense)_

Winter is just ending, the last snow of the season still on the ground the first time he kisses her. They’re downstairs, in the kitchen, near the ovens which are warm as they bake. Allie wanted cupcakes. Neither wanted to leave the house.

“Are you sure this is safe?” she asks. She’s heard enough stories to worry. She thinks she knows the answer; nothing’s ever safe in District Twelve. 

He shakes his head. 

The next day Harry takes her to the fence. When he speaks, it’s still in whispers.

“We could run away,” he tells her. His words come out in a rush. “To District Thirteen. It’s real, Allie.”

She thinks for a half a second longer than she needs. Cassandra’s planning something, she knows that much. Allie also knows she’s not a part of those plans. She hasn’t been a part of Cassandra’s plans since the Games. She stares up at Harry. 

“Okay.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district thirteen.**

Alma never got sick. Her parents both did. So did her sister. Not her, though. 

Harlow wasn’t sick, either. That’s how they met. 

She’s five when people start disappearing and wearing big white suits and forcing face masks onto faces. She’s five and it feels like forever before her parents come out of the medbay (it’s four months. She stays with the Binghams, Harlow and his mom. She’s the president and Alma really shouldn’t be staying with them, but they’re family friends and rules are made to be bent). In the end, her sister doesn’t come out of the medbay with them. They don’t talk about her, and all Alma really remembers is blonde hair and _Cas._

Maybe it’s fucked up, but she doesn’t mind much, not knowing her sister. She has Harlow. He’s practically family. 

She doesn’t know anything but District Thirteen. Alma’s never seen the sky. Her knowledge of the outside world comes from the books they read in school. 

Harlow will sneak her books from his mom's library. They’ll flip through pages of pictures of places they might never get to see. 

“Is the sky really that blue?” she asks. They’re twelve. They won’t hear of a ‘Reaping’ until the next year. They won’t worry about that here.

“And the ocean,” she adds. “Imagine Four.”

They sit side by side on his bed. Alma lays back and stares at the ceiling. She imagines stars. 

He shifts to lay beside her. “I wonder what the air feels like up there.”

“When the Capitol falls, we’ll go wherever we want.”

Harlow’s mom comes into the compartment. He moves to hide the book, but either she doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. 

“You should head home soon, Alma,” she tells her. Alma nods. Harlow walks her back to her compartment even though curfew will have set in by the time he’s able to get back to his own. In Thirteen, this is the most rebellious you’re allowed to be.

They’re thirteen the first time they hear about the Hunger Games. It’s their last year of school. They get a textbook full of glossy pictures of the winners. Alma doesn’t fully understand it. 

“They just kill kids,” she says. “They kill kids and get away with it.” Harlow’s sitting beside her. They’re supposed to be studying for a test. 

“We’re going to stop them,” he tells her. He’s staring down at the book, at the glossy pictures. 

“We’re old enough to get Reaped. Us, Harlow. We’re kids.”

“We’re going to stop them,” he repeats. He looks up at her, looks her in the eye. “We’ll end it.”

Alma doesn’t see it, the Hunger Games, until she’s seventeen. 

In between, they turn fourteen and are called _soldier_ by everyone. Harlow makes a point to only call Alma by her name. His mom thinks it’s obnoxious. Alma’s assigned to work with his mom, and Harlow works in propaganda writing. The upcoming war feels omnipresent. It’s not there yet, but Alma doesn’t have to squint anymore to see it on the horizon.

Harlow’s not even a year older than her, but, at eighteen, he’s legally of age and allowed in the Command Room. Alma’s not supposed to be there, but Harlow’s mom turns a blind eye when Alma appears (his mom calls her _the future._ Harlow tells Alma that his mom sees her as a daughter, the daughter she couldn’t have because of the pox). 

Alma and Harlow are allowed to watch the Games for an hour each day. They argue their way into being allowed to watch the recap at the very end because it’s _important to their education._ Everyone knows it’s only because of who they are. The children of the cooks, the ones that got into the room because of test scores and raw talent, aren’t given any special treatment. Alma doesn’t care about the fairness of the situation, though. 

So they’re eighteen (or at least Harlow is), and it’s the Games, and _fuck, it’s different live._ Everything they know comes straight out of a textbook, it comes from secondary sources that filter everything until it feels right. 

They watch the Bloodbath with wide eyes. That night, Harlow walks her back to her compartment. She turns to him at the door. Her parents are going to be gone all night watching the Games, taking notes, making plans. His mom will be with them. 

“Stay with me?” she asks softly. It’s after the door to the compartment opens and she realises she’ll be alone.

He’s already following her inside when he mumbles a quiet, “Sure.”

She feels a little like they’re thirteen again, flipping through textbooks side by side on his bed, only now it’s _real_ in a way it wasn’t before. She leans her head against his shoulder and her tells her, quiet and soft, that _they’ll end it._

On the second day, her entire hour is spent focussed on the star-crossed lovers of District Twelve. They’re young, as young as her and Harlow. It forces Alma to think about what she’d do in their situation. _(We just need to find water, Luke, then we’ll be fine. We have food. We have that backpack you grabbed. We’ll be fine. Helena, I love you.)_

On the walk back to her compartment, she forces Harlow to tell her everything he knows about the pair.

“In the Interviews, they said they were childhood sweethearts,” he says. “They grew up together. They had plans to get married.”

Harlow stays with her again that night. When her parents see him leave in the morning, they don’t ask any questions. Alma is appreciative.

While watching the recap, three things stand out to Alma. 

  1. How young everyone is. The oldest are only eighteen. The youngest are twelve. That scares the shit out of her.
  2. Helena kills three people. Luke’s only kill is on accident. In the end, as they’re lifted up on the hovercraft, both are shaking. Helena’s face is pressed into the crook of Luke’s neck. Neither look happy.
  3. The Capitol didn’t want two Victors, but they’d rather that than no Victor at all. At first, Alma finds it hard to imagine being so in love with someone that you’re willing to end it all for them. (Then she looks at Harlow. She thinks maybe it’s possible.)



A year later, they’re in the midst of a war, a real war, one they’d been preparing for for years, her entire life. It’s arrived. It’s real. It’s scary, and loud, and all she can think about is how it’ll end.

District Twelve fills the already stuffy space of Thirteen. The air still tastes stale, but everything’s louder now. Alma still can’t wait to go outside.

When Twelve shows up, things change. The bomb shelter starts to feel like a second home and soldiers are suddenly soldiers in the traditional sense. Harlow writes words that Luke says in front of cameras and people plot ways to get Helena out of the Capitol. Things are scary and stay scary.

In the bomb shelters, she doesn’t think about how she can’t find Harlow. She doesn’t think about being so far underground that it almost feels wrong, doesn’t think about her too small cot and the baby that’s crying somewhere far away, and how loud everything is. He could be somewhere up there, trapped under rubble, trapped in his compartment too close to the top. God, she doesn’t want to think about that. 

No, she thinks about being twelve and him asking, “What do you think snow feels like?”

She thinks about staring at a glossy page in a book. About how some things just don’t feel real.

(Yesterday, Harlow’s mom had told her that Alma would make a good President for Thirteen one day. Alma had cried, later, later while she was alone in her compartment. She doesn’t want to think about years more underground.)

_I don’t know,_ she had told him. _But I guess we’ll find out when the Capitol falls._

  
  


* * *

  
  


**district zero (the capitol).**

Anthia takes pride in the fact that her father is a Gamemaker. It means something.

And most people don’t get that. Hermes does, though. He understands.

She’s known Hermes since she was five, since the first time she was allowed in the control during the Games. He was there too.

He was there the first time she made a bet, the first time anything, the first time they got to celebrate. During the Games, while everyone is glued to screens, they spend entire nights on rooftops staring at the sky. Sometimes she thinks that the stars are only visible during those few weeks in the summer. 

And, besides her sister, he might be her best friend.

Anthia thinks that there’s very little about her life that she would change, that she likes how things are, likes the view of the sunset from the roof of her apartment building, likes the feel of Hermes’s hand in hers, likes the Capitol and the Games. 

She thinks that it’s good, how things are.

It’s the two from Twelve that mess everything up. The _star crossed lovers._ The childhood sweethearts reaped together in some strange twist of fate. They win because the Capitol made a mistake and bent the rules for love.

They win and everything gets fucked up.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_“I’m nineteen and I’m on fire.”_

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! again, if you having any questions about the fic or just want to talk, feel free to hmu on [tumblr](https://in-my-head-i-do-everything-right.tumblr.com/)
> 
> also, please let me know what you thought of the fic!


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